Barbara's travels continue 2018

The new arrival, Big Mike, my beautiful one-eyed cat. He is huge, and hugely affectionate too. Frequent spectacular sunrises  make waking up even more wonderful! And very often similarly fantastic sunsets with subtle shades of gold make soaking in the spa all the more pleasurable. Every week the visits to the Botanical Gardens become more beautiful. The magnolias are now bursting with massive blooms so bright that no photo can really do them justice. The carpet of petals on the lawn is equally gorgeous. The daffodil and snowdrop lawns just keep getting more and more sensational. I will certainly be a regular visitor there. Mike has settled well and is such great company, so I did feel bad leaving him in order to head south, but he is in good hands with my friend Carolina. The trip to Wanaka is so fantastic and always different. I had good weather for the journey, but storms were brewing on the West Coast and over the Southern Alps. It was such dramatic scenery. And to the east there w

It was great to head across to Akaroa. The weather was perfect and virtually nobody was on the winding road around the bays. I have always intended to stop at the little hamlets en route to Robinson's Bay, and at last I managed it and was certainly not disappointed. Duvauchelles, named after a French captain, is home to some beautifully colourful boatsheds and awesome scenery. As the sun went down, the warm final rays lit up the hills of Banks Peninsula. Apart from this flock of cormorants I was totally alone in this breathtakingly beautiful bay. Akaroa is no longer a seething mass of cruise ship visitors. It is once again the quiet, yet popular little village for Christchurch families to visit,  to enjoy its peace and tranquillity. Even the local birdlife seemed happy to have the place more or less to themselves. What a fabulous final picnic with Liz and Brian at Wainui, near Akaroa Heads. It is decades since I last visited this area, but I will certainly be back soon. Here we ar